Per Kristian Nygard, a Norwegian artist, has filled an entire gallery in Oslo with grassy landscaped. The installation, Not Red But Green, covers the floors of Noplace gallery and into the entry way as well.

​ This exhibit shows the relationships between unlikely environments, human response, architecture, and nature. It explores spaces and how they can merge, like this installation combining the architecture of an environment and the nature of a landscape. Constructed with wooden framework, the hills were then grown on a plastic sheet covered in soil and sprinkled with grass seeds. Depending on when you visited the exhibit, you would have seen different amounts of grass growing, as they sprouted during the exhibition time. Being regularly watered also brought parts where patches of soil were visible, but soon grass sprouted over it in wispy waves.

​The exhibit brings on interaction when you enter, from feeling the grass to trying to figure out how this could have happened. As the artist says, you are “entering a space where everything’s wrong but feels right.”

Who cares about bike lanes when you could have a bicycle-only highway? Germany has officially opened the first three miles of its planned 60-mile bicycle superhighway. It’s closed to cars and motor vehicles, and unlike most bike lanes, it is a separate roadway for cyclists only. The only traffic you have to worry about is other bicyclists. Made as an intended benefit to commuting cyclists, the route will connect cities of Germany along a 60 mile stretch. It will include cities such as Duisburg, Bochum, and Hamm as well as taking abandoned railways and turning them into part of the bike path.

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​ ​In most places, the path will be around 4 meters wide (13 feet.) It also includes passing lanes, overpasses and underpasses, will have its own streetlights, and will be cleared of snow in the winter time. It will be just like a road for cars, but bikes only. One of the groups working on the project predicts this bike path will take about 50,000 cars off the road each day. 2 million people live only 2 kilometers (1.24 miles) from the path, so they hope this will give more people the opportunity to swap a car for a bike and ride to work.

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But this isn’t the only place planning on having one of these bike superhighways. London has approved for one earlier this year, making it the first European one. Others are also in the works in the Netherlands and Denmark

A new, green roofed, wooden building has popped up in Paris. It is a community center that meets Passivhaus energy requirements and was designed as part of an urban renovation project in Saint-Martin district.

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This is the Christian Marin Community Center, and it stands out in the area it was built. Designed by the Guillamume Ramillien Architecture group, it is the only building in the area with a green roof and will also begin to feature flowers by the end of this fall. Located in front of one windowless building, and another plain building, the wood structure stands out. Only two floors, it is also the shortest of the three buildings. As well, it has more windows, and larger windows, than any of its neighbors.

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The purpose of the building, according to the architects, is to “reaffirm the desire to enrich the available architectural offer and highlight the ecological engagement of the area.” It features four rooms connected by an atrium that house various activities for kids from 11 to 18 years old as well as a room for meetings and other events.

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